Thursday, July 10, 2014

Texas’ Abbott: ‘Drive around’ to look for dangerous chemicals

07/02/14 12:39 PM—Updated 07/02/14 12:40 PM

Um, why should we drive around looking for dangerous chemicals?

. . . because Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), the frontrunner
in this year’s gubernatorial race, declared that state records on
dangerous chemical locations can be withheld from the public. The Texas Tribunereported yesterday on the state A.G.’s rationale.

Why would you not? Why would you not want people to know what chemicals are being stored where? Why would you withhold that information from the public?

Oh, right!

But anyway, that's not even the stupid part. Here's the stupid part:

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, under fire for
blocking public access to state records documenting the location of
dangerous chemicals, said Texans still have a right to find out where
the substances are stored.

As long as they know which companies to ask.

“You know where they are if you drive around,” Abbott told
reporters Tuesday. “You can ask every facility whether or not they have
chemicals or not. You can ask them if they do, and they can tell you,
‘Well we do have chemicals or we don’t have chemicals,’ and if they do,
they tell which ones they have.”

Seriously, you want people to drive around to various companies, walk up to the gate, ask for the manager and ask him to reveal trade secrets to you? Seriously?

You're not getting past this guy.

I mean, sure, technically they could tell you. But they fucking won't. These companies won't even tell Congress what kinds of chemicals they use. Under subpoena! They just say "trade secrets, bitches!" and walk away laughing. You think they're going to give that information to Joe Citizen? You're a fucking idiot if you think theere's any chance of that happening.

Stupid person # 2:

Republican state Sen. Brandon Smith of Kentucky has a new theory
on why climate change couldn’t possibly be slowly warming the earth’s
temperature, resulting in legions of effects to the environment and its
inhabitants.

Republican? Kentucky? Oh, you just know this is gonna be good!

“As you sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us.

No. No, you don't get your own data. There is one set of data. And then there is a bunch of numbers made up by some shills on the Koch payroll. Also, might want to leave out the fact that in addition to phony data you also have "stuff" behind you.

But anyway, that's not even the stupid part.

This is the stupid part:

I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but I
will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the
temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that,”
said the senator in a video posted by the weekly publication. “Yet
there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I’m
aware of.”

The temperature on Mars. The same as the Earth? You're serious?

On average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees F (minus
60 degrees C). In winter, near the poles temperatures can get down to
minus 195 degrees F (minus 125 degrees C). A summer day on Mars may get
up to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) near the equator, but at night the
temperature can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F (minus 73 C). (http://www.space.com/16907-what-is-the-temperature-of-mars.html)

And you say that "academia" is in agreement with you? Academia?

Sure, nobody will dispute that. Nobody who has the vaguest realization that Mars is quite a b it further from the Sun and therefore can not help but be considerably colder than Earth will dispute that. Or, to put it more succinctly, no one who ever took 5th grade science class will dispute that, which kind of leaves out "academia."